Hamas Denies Intent to Take Over Judea, Samaria

The Hamas terrorist organization denies reports of its intent to take over Palestinian Authority-controlled areas of Judea and Samaria.

By Chana Ya'ar

First Publish: 12/24/2012, 9:33 PM

Ramallah

Flash 90

The Hamas terrorist organization is denying reports of its intent to take over Palestinian Authority-controlled areas of Judea and Samaria.

Spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri was quoted in a report posted on the terror group's Al Qassam website as telling the Quds Press the reports were nothing more than “Israeli incitement” aimed at dividing PA factions. Abu Zuhri made the comment in response to an article published in the UK-based Sunday Times that alleged Hamas intends to launch a coup in the Fatah-led regions.

Senior representatives of the PA's ruling Fatah faction, along with top members of Gaza's ruling Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist organizations announced the news to a crowd of 1,000 cheering PA Arabs last month in Ramallah as a ceasefire was being negotiated between Gaza terror factions and Israel towards the end of the IDF Operation Pillar of Defense.

Hamas already controls Gaza, and has created a separate government over the region which it wrested from Fatah in 2007 in a bloody civil war.

The two factions, which until that point had managed to maintain an uneasy unity government, have since then been divided.

Fatah, which also comprises the largest member faction in the Palestine Liberation Organization, leads the PA government from the entity's capital city of Ramallah in the Samaria (Shomron) region. Hamas leads the separate government of the Gaza region from Gaza City.

According to the Sunday Times article, written by Tel Aviv-based journalist Uzi Mahnaimi, “The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has been warned by his intelligence services that the Islamist group Hamas could seize power in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria -ed.), just as it did in Gaza five years ago... Hamas sleeper cells in the West Bank had been ordered by Khaled Mashaal, its political leader who is based partly in Egypt, to prepare for a struggle to take control. The analysis is supported by the security service Shin Bet.”